too old for this church?

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Active Member

First off, I barely know the person telling me this account of a church in another state from where I live. It may be true. It may just be someone with an ax to grind. Until or unless I can verify it, let's discuss it as a hypothetical church.

Here is the plan being proposed:

They decided to go with the business model format for their church. Their target demographic to reach in their town is the 30-40something crowd.

In order to appear more youthful, those over age 65 will be considered to have aged out of Sunday School. They will be welcome on the premises during that time only as Sunday School teachers or as nursery workers or as providers/servers/cleanup people for a treats and coffee bar.

The church has been running two Sunday morning services, one contemporary and one traditional. They are equally well attended with the traditional drawing more of the over 45 crowd. Plan is to switch to all contemporary in order to draw more of the younger population of the town.

Sunday evening has been a blended service following discipleship training. Both are well attended, mostly by those over 45 or by those younger who cannot attend Sunday morning due to job commitments. Plan is to scrap the service and the discipleship training, giving the teens the run of the building for a fellowship time.

Either Friday or Saturday night will be designated parent's night out. Those over 65 wanting to remain on the active member list will be expected to serve in providing free child care on the church premises to the younger couples.

Visitation to shut ins and the ill will be dropped. Visitation will be to prospective members only. Only those under 45 may sign up to visit.

Men's Bible study group will become men's fellowship group.

Women will retain their midweek Bible study. Day group will be dropped and only the evening group offered. Age limit is 45. After that women who wish to participate may do so by providing child care for the attenders.

I have to say my jaw about hit the floor at these proposals. Have you encountered anything even remotely like this? Would you approve of it if you did? Would you want to attend this church?

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New Member

I am in the under 45 crowd and if my church ever proposed this I would be looking for another church. This is completely and utterly unbiblical. It sounds like some "youngins" have taken control of the church and want to kick all the elderly out. raying:

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Active Member

For all practical purposes many churches have done this, driving older folks out or making them feel as outsiders in the church that they helped build - this church, if true, is just being up front with what they are doing and have codified it :thumbsup:

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New Member

For all practical purposes many churches have done this, driving older folks out or making them feel as outsiders in the church that they helped build - this church, if true, is just being up front with what they are doing and have codified it :thumbsup:

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drfuss: You are correct. Many churches have, in effect, done this without explicitlly stating it. Eighteen years ago, my previous non-baptist church, in effect, did the same thing. When confronted about it, the pastor said the church is going to appeal to the young people since they will be the church of the future. Only lipservice was given to the worship needs of the older people. With the exception of a few churches, I am told that the whole denomination went in that dierection.

In yet another denomination, a pastor told me that the direction out of their headquarters was to go in this direction, i.e. appeal to the young people and disregard the objections of the older people.

It is really sad that those who supported the church during the lean times and got it firmly on its feet, are now not really being ministered to.

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Administrator

Administrator

First off, I barely know the person telling me this account of a church in another state from where I live. It may be true. It may just be someone with an ax to grind. Until or unless I can verify it, let's discuss it as a hypothetical church.

Here is the plan being proposed:

They decided to go with the business model format for their church. Their target demographic to reach in their town is the 30-40something crowd.

In order to appear more youthful, those over age 65 will be considered to have aged out of Sunday School. They will be welcome on the premises during that time only as Sunday School teachers or as nursery workers or as providers/servers/cleanup people for a treats and coffee bar.

The church has been running two Sunday morning services, one contemporary and one traditional. They are equally well attended with the traditional drawing more of the over 45 crowd. Plan is to switch to all contemporary in order to draw more of the younger population of the town.

Sunday evening has been a blended service following discipleship training. Both are well attended, mostly by those over 45 or by those younger who cannot attend Sunday morning due to job commitments. Plan is to scrap the service and the discipleship training, giving the teens the run of the building for a fellowship time.

Either Friday or Saturday night will be designated parent's night out. Those over 65 wanting to remain on the active member list will be expected to serve in providing free child care on the church premises to the younger couples.

Visitation to shut ins and the ill will be dropped. Visitation will be to prospective members only. Only those under 45 may sign up to visit.

Men's Bible study group will become men's fellowship group.

Women will retain their midweek Bible study. Day group will be dropped and only the evening group offered. Age limit is 45. After that women who wish to participate may do so by providing child care for the attenders.

I have to say my jaw about hit the floor at these proposals. Have you encountered anything even remotely like this? Would you approve of it if you did? Would you want to attend this church?

Click to expand...

This sounds like a farcical church website that I saw. I suspect that is the case.

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Active Member

EdSutton--sorry to have offended you. I posted it seeking information.

You see, I was once a member of a church that closed down it's Spanish language mission not because it was not effectively reaching the Hispanics in our town, but in order to give the English speaking teens a larger, nicer space.

Numerically, there were more in the mission than the teen group. The mission moved to another building in another part of the county and still thrived. The teen group didn't grow much, but of course Anglo teens and their families contributed much more than Hispanic families because they had a higher income. (I will only tell you this was in NM. That pastor is gone and no longer pastors and the church has corrected its errors so why tar and feather them in public?)

In another state I was once a member of a church that set its demographic goal as 25-45 upper middle class. Large, well attended SS classes that were not in that demographic were moved from adequate classrooms to inadequate ones. That target age was given the better rooms despite low attendance numbers.

The music style was changed (nope, not from traditional to contemporary. More like from country contemporary to rock contemporary.) When the folks that started the church and were in the majority would ask for the songs they used to do during the "congregation picks" part of services, the pastor would very nastily tell the whole crowd "you know, if you don't like how we do things now, maybe you don't belong here." About the 3rd time he did, my dh leaned over and loudly told me "maybe he is right." We never went back.

But we spent several years in ND.......with no Baptist church of any kind close enough to attend. Need I say that Baptistdom has changed a whole heaping lot since 1997?????

And we still live in a very rural area. So the only way for me to get a clue as to whether or not something is common is post it and ask.

And from the replies, I would say some churches would never do this kind of stuff, and some would. Since most on here have a negative view of such shenanigans, we can learn from even rumors of a "bad church".

True or not, my acquaintance has given me fair warning to think when new or different ideas are proposed. I want to think it through and make sure in helping one group I do not hurt another group.

And since I haven't even posted the state the church is supposedly in I fail to see how this is gossip.......but again, I do apologize for offending.

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